


Twin Knives

by Lomonaaeren



Series: Wednesday One-Shots [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Aurors, Curses, Drama, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-05
Updated: 2015-02-18
Packaged: 2018-03-10 13:40:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3292376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lomonaaeren/pseuds/Lomonaaeren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Draco has narcolepsy—and violent dreams. Harry has insomnia—and enemies. It takes Draco a while to figure out how their problems are connected, but once he does, it’s their enemy who should watch out.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part One

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Notes: Another Wednesday one-shot, based on a prompt from enamoril: _Harry has been cursed with insomnia, and Draco with selective but debilitating narcolepsy. Draco frequently dreams of Harry trying to kill him during his sleeping moments, and discovers that the curse placed on them came from the same source... someone whose trying to drive Draco to kill Harry, who is overworked in the Auror ranks. Non canon-- Divorce from Ginny due to work obsession before any kids were conceived. Draco lost Scorpius to Astoria in his recent divorce due to incompetence from the narcolepsy. Also, I'd like them to end up together. Otherwise, take it where you will :3._
> 
> Due to the length and complexity of the prompt, this one-shot will have three parts, one posted this Wednesday and the others during the following two weeks.

****Draco strained his neck, but he couldn’t move. The cords that tied him down to the makeshift altar were too tight, already pulled to their taut limit. Draco tried to move his hands, and he couldn’t do _that,_ either. He was held helpless.  
  
The figure above him moved slowly towards him, eyes glowing in the dim flicker of lightning from above. It wore a hood and heavy cloak, but for all that, Draco could make out the green eyes and familiar lightning bolt scar above him before the knife came down.  
  
Draco jerked himself awake, spitting and swearing. He lifted his head and looked bleakly around the small, bare office he’d been exiled to lately, since he had fallen asleep during the last conference on the management of dragon reserves.  
  
The way he’d fallen asleep again  _here_. And had another dream about Potter almost killing him.  
  
Draco stood up, his hands so firm on the edge of the table that it felt as though he could never fall asleep again, that he would feel that hardness branded into his palms until the end of time. But he knew better. He was prone to falling asleep in the middle of speaking, in the middle of walking, and a few times, it was only Greg or some other quick friend nearby that had saved him from a concussion. He hadn’t dared ride a broom since this had started.  
  
And he had fallen asleep in court, and lost the most important case of his life, the moment when he’d had to explain to the judge why Scorpius should stay with him.  
  
Draco growled softly. He should have done something about this before. He knew well enough that his narcolepsy wasn’t natural, and neither were those dreams. He might have dreams about Potter, of course, because Potter appeared in a lot of his war memories that got turned into nightmares on a regular basis.  
  
But not like this. And as far as Draco knew, the magic of the life-debts that connected them should have prevented him from obsessing about Potter’s ability to harm him. People who owed each other life-debts had a faint, magical connection that made them a little more open to each other.  
  
A  _tiny_ bit, Draco had to concede. He knew James Potter had saved Professor Snape’s life, and he had seen how much Snape hated the dead Potter. But Potter himself, and Draco, had had no such deep enmity.  
  
Which meant this was a curse. Draco should have investigated the possibility before, but between fighting to get custody of Scorpius, and then pressing Astoria for a chance to be allowed to see him, and avoiding his disappointed parents’ firecalls, and struggling to keep his job—small as it was, it was his—in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, he hadn’t had the time or the energy.  
  
Now, he did.  
  
Draco’s hand tightened on his desk again. He might fall asleep in the meantime, but for now, he was awake. And that meant he had to go do some research.  
  
*  
  
“Harry. Go the fuck home.”  
  
Harry didn’t bother looking up. He had a few more forms to sign, and after that came the report on the Goblyn case that had turned so unexpectedly violent. There was always more to do, and more time to do it in now that he didn’t sleep anymore. “What home would that be, Ron? The one Ginny took away? Or the flat that my landlord keeps displaying to people eager to see where the Famous Harry Potter lives?”  
  
Ron’s breath caught, and then he leaned into Harry’s field of vision and shook his head. “You know she wouldn’t have taken it if she had a choice. She needs to have a home base to come back to when her team isn’t playing.”  
  
Harry gave him a long, long stare until Ron grunted and turned away. He didn’t bother making his voice soft when he added, “I see what she means. You  _are_ obsessed with work.”  
  
“Yeah,” said Harry. “And if I could sleep, then I might not be. I might have spent some more time with her.” That had once been the time of his best moments with Ginny, the moments just before they fell asleep, leaning together and whispering in soft voices about their plans and dreams.  
  
“You  _know_ Hermione offered to research the cause of your insomnia for you.” Ron wasn’t looking at Harry right now.  
  
“She didn’t need to research it, she said, because she said she knew it.” Harry leaned back and sighed. He was losing precious minutes of working time. He wouldn’t have grudged the loss if either he or Ron had stood a chance of convincing the other one, but he knew as well as Ron that neither of them would do anything but repeat the same words and ideas. “And I’m  _not_ going into therapy.”  
  
“You need it.”  
  
Harry shrugged. “Maybe I do, but if I don’t sleep at all, I can’t have nightmares, can I? I don’t have any of the normal side-effects from not sleeping, either.” Except the weariness that dogged him all the time—but not hallucinations, not a drunk feeling, not any of the other things that Harry knew should be happening to someone who didn’t get regular sleep, never mind four months without a wink of it. “This is magical.”  
  
“And you know that Hermione cast all the spells she could, and she still couldn’t figure it out.” Ron’s hand tapped against his knee as though he was considering reaching out and hitting Harry on the side of the head. Honestly, Harry was surprised it hadn’t happened yet. It was a wonder that he and Ron managed to work together at all, considering the tension that had swirled between them ever since Ginny. “It has to be your nightmares.”  
  
Harry only turned back to his paperwork and didn’t respond. Hermione’s latest theory was that Harry was using his own magic to keep himself awake, both so that he could avoid the nightmares and so that he could get more work done. Harry had argued that wasn’t true, Hermione had pointed out that he wouldn’t know about it because it wasn’t  _conscious_ , and that conversation had ended badly.  
  
Like so many of his conversations, lately.  
  
“When you want someone to talk to, mate,” said Ron, and his voice was bitter, “then say something to me again.”  
  
Harry sighed and listened to the door shut before he went back to signing the forms. The truth was, he  _did_ work better without anyone around. Even though he and Ron didn’t spend a lot of time talking, the mere silent humming, the buzz of their disagreements, was enough to distract Harry.  
  
He and Ron still worked together in the field well, or the Ministry would have found other partners for them. But Harry thought it would come to that in the end. Either he would ask for someone else, or Ron would.  
  
 _Probably Ron_.  
  
Harry shook his head and stood up. Right now, he was so distracted that the blur of thoughts actually kept him from seeing the parchment. He would take a brief break, go to the loo and get a cup of tea. And then he would come back and keep working.  
  
He turned around, and saw Malfoy standing in the doorframe.  
  
Harry blinked at him in silence. He hadn’t seen Malfoy in person since the Death Eater trials. Well, and there had been that one time last year when Malfoy had been a witness to the theft of a rare egg from his Department. But Harry couldn’t imagine why Malfoy would have sought him out.  
  
Malfoy studied him closely for a second. He looked like hell, Harry noted absently. Even though he had never heard that Malfoy suffered from the same kind of insomnia he did, the prat had a year’s worth of dark circles under his eyes, and his back was stiff.   
  
“I need to talk to you, Potter,” Malfoy whispered. “About a curse that’s been cast on both of us.”  
  
 _Maybe it is insomnia._ Harry’s path was so separate from Malfoy’s that the rumors might have passed right under his awareness. Interested now, he nodded and gestured Malfoy to the chair in front of the desk. “Are you having trouble sleeping, too?”  
  
Malfoy opened his mouth in what looked like a pant rather than a laugh as he sat down. “No. I’ve been falling asleep all the time.” He leaned in and stabbed a finger at Harry as if he thought Harry was the one who had cast the curse. “And I finally investigated what it could be, and narrowed down the list of Dark spells. And then I started searching for someone who was suffering from insomnia.” He paused. “Honestly, it didn’t take that long. Most of my dreams are about you.”  
  
Harry paused. Then he sat down, and said, “Why?”  
  
“Because this is the Twin Knives curse,” said Malfoy. “I didn’t recognize it at first because it can be cast any number of ways, having equal but opposite effects on two people, and I hadn’t ever heard about it using sleep as the vehicle.” His face had gone white and taut. “I thought I was the prime target, because the insomnia you’ve received apparently doesn’t have that many ill effects on you.”  
  
Harry shrugged. “It’s alienated me from my friends. They think it’s magical, but they also think I used my own magic to cause it so I could spend more time at work.” He was at least a little intrigued. He had had people approach him with explanations or treatments for the insomnia who obviously wanted something from him, but he didn’t think Malfoy needed his autograph or anything. “What do you dream about where I’m concerned?”  
  
“You trying to kill me.” Malfoy rubbed the back of his neck. “Now, though, I think the target is you.”  
  
Harry grunted, accepting that. Merlin knew he had enough enemies. “Why?”  
  
Malfoy paused for a second. “Do you have often have fantasies about trying to kill me?”  
  
Harry stared long enough to make Malfoy flush, and then he said, softly and precisely, “No.”  
  
“Well, then, this isn’t drawing on fantasies in your head that could have provided material for the curse,” said Malfoy, and looked away for a moment, scratching the back of his neck. “And you haven’t felt the urge to seek me out and use your wand on me in a violent manner.”  
  
“Not the last I  _looked,_ no,” said Harry, and drew a frustrated glance from Malfoy before he shook his head and stared down at his hands.  
  
“And honestly, I don’t think someone would bother with me now,” Malfoy said. “Not when I’ve already testified about all the war crimes I knew of, escaped Azkaban, and lost custody of my son. I could almost see Astoria casting the curse, but it would have ended when she won. And she wouldn’t have had a particular reason to pick you, or inflict me with visions like that.”  
  
Harry thought a second, arms crossed on his desk. He had been willing to accept the insomnia and the way it slowed his thoughts because it gave him so much more time to think them instead of resting uselessly in bed, but now he wondered about the price. “So you think that the visions are—what, pushing you to kill me in self-defense?”  
  
“Yes,” said Malfoy simply, and crossed one leg over the other. Harry must be more dazed by lack of sleep than he thought, because he almost regarded the motion as elegant. “That’s the usual purpose of the Twin Knives curse. One knife, the less important victim, is directed against the other.”  
  
Harry ran his fingers through his head and let out a soft sigh. What Malfoy was saying made sense, but—“You know how many enemies I have? Figuring out which one of them it is isn’t going to be easy.”  
  
He looked up at the sound of a soft thunk. Malfoy’s head had dropped forwards onto the desk, and he was breathing so heavily that if Harry had found him at a crime scene, his first fear would have been smoke inhalation. But he was only asleep, and not easy to wake up, as Harry found out when he shook him.  
  
Harry paused a moment to regard him with pity. He could only imagine what that would have done to Malfoy’s chances of winning custody of his son in court.  
  
Then he moved Malfoy’s head out of the way and quietly went on working. He couldn’t do anything more until Malfoy woke, given that he had no lead on the curse except what Malfoy had told him, and it didn’t do to waste time.  
  
*  
  
Draco woke from a vision, this time, of Potter stalking him through the corridors of the Ministry. It was more realistic than the last fifteen or so, and Draco was afraid that they would only grow more realistic from here on out. He exhaled hard and rubbed at his cheeks.  
  
“Are you all right?”  
  
Draco nearly leaped up from the chair before he remembered where he was and that he had sought out Potter on purpose. He sat back down, shaking a little. Potter nodded at him and shoved aside the stack of paperwork in front of him.  
  
“Were you…writing while I was asleep?” Draco asked, staring at him. It seemed so. There were inkstains on Potter’s fingers that he didn’t remember being there only a few minutes ago, or however long he had slept. He cast a subtle  _Tempus_ Charm and saw that it had been about ten minutes.  
  
“Yes,” said Potter, his eyebrows rising a little. “I don’t know anything about this spell, so I didn’t know how long it would be until you woke up. I wasn’t going to waste the time.”  
  
Draco whistled softly. “No wonder you got divorced, too.”  
  
Potter turned and looked at the wall as though there was a window there. But although Draco thought he was certainly high-ranking enough to have merited one, there was only the stone. “Not you, too,” he said, and his voice was almost a monotone. “That’s all they want to tell me, Ron and Hermione and Ginny and the rest of them, that I’m too obsessed with my job.”  
  
“You are, if you haven’t sought help before now,” said Draco. “You got divorced three months ago, right?”  
  
Potter blinked at him. “Right.”  
  
“And you were suffering the insomnia before that,” Draco concluded. That had to be true, because his own inconvenient bouts of sleep had started before then, and the Twin Knives curse inflicted both its horrible parts at the same time. “What did your wife say about that? You never thought you should go and have a Healer look at you?” Damn, he could have been out of this before if Potter had gone to someone knowledgeable enough to recognize the Twin Knives when they were looking at them.  
  
On the other hand, it was a Dark curse, and most Healers only studied ways to counter them, not how to cast them. And without the other person who was suffering from the Twin Knives—in this case, Draco, who with his visions had known Potter was connected somehow—it was very hard to diagnose.  
  
“She didn’t like it, of course.” Potter had his head turned away again. “She said that I cared more about being an Auror than I did about her.”  
  
“Well, you probably did,” said Draco, who saw no reason to mince his words.  
  
Potter winced visibly and glared at him. “Do you want my help or not?”  
  
“You don’t care about getting the curse removed for its own sake?” Draco stared. Trust whoever had cast this to have paired him with someone who didn’t care about curing the spell.  
  
Potter waved his hand. “The extra time is useful. And I’m not the one who’s really suffering from it, am I?”  
  
“You’re not afraid that I might be driven to kill you?” Draco asked. “If only in self-defense?”  
  
Potter’s gaze came back to him, and his face was faintly amused. “You’re nothing I can’t handle.”  
  
Draco wanted to snap at that, but from Potter’s perspective, it was probably true. Still, it stung. “Well,  _I_ want to get this solved,” he said. “And that means we have to start thinking of people who wish both of us harm. Or at least don’t like me enough that they don’t have any trouble using me as a weapon to get rid of you.”  
  
“A Death Eater,” said Potter, his voice faint and bored.  
  
Draco snorted a little. “That’s another reason I didn’t get here until now. I was investigating the current status of the Death Eaters who are still alive. Except me, of course,” he added, when Potter’s eyes went a little too visibly to his left arm. “And all of them are in Azkaban. They don’t have wands. They couldn’t get close enough to cast the curse, anyway.”  
  
Potter sat up, and his eyes burned a little.  _Of course that’s what it needs to get him to take an interest,_ Draco thought, and held back from rolling his eyes with an effort.  _Connect it to a case, a mystery._  
  
“Then we’re dealing with someone who has Auror training,” said Potter.  
  
Draco blinked. “How do you reckon that? I didn’t know about this spell because I’m a Death Eater. It’s one that any reasonably well-educated wizard would know.”  
  
Potter didn’t even seem to notice the crack aimed at his own learning. “Because, first of all, it can’t just be a Dark wizard I’ve annoyed, or they wouldn’t have a reason to target you,” he said, holding up one finger. “I doubt you’ve been an annoyance to them lately.”  
  
“I have been doing my work,” said Draco.  
  
Potter gave him a faint smile of disbelief. Draco was coming to dislike Potter on his own merits again, regardless of the part he played in Draco’s inconvenient dreams. “Yes, but I also doubt that you’ve taken any beloved pet of a Dark wizard into custody,” he said.  
  
Draco scowled. That was, unfortunately, true. It did seem as though people who wanted to break the Experimental Breeding Ban weren’t Dark or even mad so much as overly enthusiastic idiots. Rather like Potter’s friend Hagrid.  
  
Before Draco could mention that, Potter went smoothly on. “An Auror, on the other hand, might have a grudge against me, and also have a grudge against you, if they thought that you escaped justice when you escaped Azkaban.”  
  
“Maybe,” said Draco. “But I still think this has to be more complicated than that. Someone could have chosen me because of the rivalry that we used to have, and they would think that my killing you would be—less questioned—because of that.”  
  
Potter only nodded, once again not disturbed by discussion of his own death. Draco wondered for a second what  _would_ make passion flash in his eyes. Even the interest the case seemed to have excited in him was only an academic one. Maybe the insomnia had dimmed all his emotions. “That’s true. But I didn’t tell you the other reasons that I think the killer is an Auror.”  
  
Draco folded his arms and rolled his eyes. “Then, by all means, enlighten me.”  
  
Potter didn’t react to the sarcastic tone, except to blink at Draco a little, as if encouraging him to calm down. Then he shrugged and said, “Because I remember that curse, now that you mention it. It was taught to the Aurors in the year ahead of me, because they said it could be a useful tool to incapacitate a pair of criminals working together. By the time I got to that part of the training, though, they’d decided it was too Dark to keep using.”  
  
“So you don’t know how to cast it, but you know who might,” Draco breathed. “So we’ve only got Aurors older than you to check out.” He sniffed and sat up. “Still a large group.”  
  
Potter nodded. “Yes. But smaller than all the Dark wizards in Britain.”  
  
“Fine,” said Draco. “Tell me the ones you’ve annoyed, and I can maybe tell you the names that sound familiar.” He was sure he would have had to come into contact with the Auror at some point. The Twin Knives curse relied on the caster’s wand touching a victim at least once.  
  
“Who haven’t I annoyed?” Potter shrugged wearily. “There are ones who are angry at me because they were friends with Ginny or they knew her.” Draco nodded, remembering that Potter’s wife, ex-wife, had been part of the Auror ranks briefly before she decided she would rather play Quidditch. “And there are ones who are angry that I spend so much time working and take some of the most high-profile cases.”  
  
Draco blinked and sat up. “That’s it.”  
  
“How do you know?” Potter leaned back in his chair, evidently wanting to put some distance between him and Draco. “A minute ago, you didn’t even know it was an Auror.”  
  
“Because jealousy is the best motive for a crime such as this,” Draco said, shaking his head. “Jealousy doesn’t care who it hurts. The person who did it might be sorry later, but they’ll probably convince themselves that you deserved it.”  
  
“I’ll submit to your expert knowledge of criminal motivations,” said Potter. Draco checked his face cautiously, but it was hard to tell if he was joking. “So. That limits the number considerably. Most of the Aurors older than me don’t resent me. They’re better Aurors anyway.”  
  
“Sometimes modesty goes too far,” Draco muttered, but Potter only gave him a blank look and didn’t seem to understand. Draco gave up on getting him to see it. “You think you could name them now?”  
  
“That won’t be necessary.”  
  
The voice was low and smooth and dark and came from the doorway. Draco spun, already rising from his chair, his hand on his wand. He knew that he would have to defend himself from another curse in a moment, and that meant—  
  
His limbs grew heavy. His eyes closed. He screamed inwardly, but the curse had no pity on him.   
  
As he plummeted towards the floor, the last thing Draco saw was Potter leaping in between him and the cloaked figure at the door.


	2. Part 2

The moment Malfoy fell, Harry was moving.  
  
It was as though all the grimness and blankness of the insomnia had blown away the minute he had someone to fight. He was alive and panting, and his heart was thrumming inside his ears like a hive of excited bees.   
  
The spell the figure cast was a familiar one, and told Harry in an instant who their culprit was. He blocked it with his own specialized Shield Charm, and watched the silvery light that would have turned him into glass reflect off into a corner of the office. Then he turned around and faced the other Auror again, who seemed to want Harry’s attention, enough at least to wait before he struck a second time.  
  
“Algernon,” he breathed.  
  
Algernon Sithicus bowed from the waist. He was a tall man, lean with muscle under his Auror uniform, with black hair and cool grey eyes and a fondness for glass and mirror magic. He shook his head tragically as he paced into the office.  
  
“Such a shame that you didn’t figure it out before,” he said. “I would have enjoyed the challenge of facing you if you knew.”  
  
Harry knew Algernon well enough to realize that wasn’t sarcasm. It was pure truth. He circled slowly to the side, and Algernon stood watching him do so, his eyes narrowed as if he was fighting against pain.  
  
“Is this  _really_  all about that defeat I handed you in our duel last year?” Harry asked. He had no doubt of the culprit now, at all, but he did have to wonder about the motivation. Algernon had shaken his head after the duel and congratulated him for winning it. Algernon was the sort who wanted to win almost anything, but unlike Malfoy when they had still been in school, he wanted to do it without cheating. He was the sort to study ferociously and then come back later and challenge Harry to a rematch when he was certain he could triumph. This was cheating if Harry ever saw it.  
  
“That was only part of it,” said Algernon. “You’re holding the Aurors back, Harry. We’ve become a public service, now.” The contempt in his voice was as cool and brisk as an autumn wind. He finally began to match Harry’s movements, not letting Harry get behind him. “We need to be the slight mavericks we were before. Investigating actual Dark wizards and dangerous crimes, not every loss of a kitten up a tree.”  
  
Harry had nothing to say to that. He was watching Algernon’s wand hand instead. He had probably studied as well as using this Twin Knives curse to try and bring Harry down. And he had already been dangerous enough. Harry wondered how to tell him that it wasn’t superior skill that had really let Harry win their duel, so much as the intuition that let Harry know when a spell was coming and he should dodge. It was the sort of thing he found it hard to teach, even to the trainees who were most hopeful about learning it.  
  
Algernon’s wand twitched, and Harry dived to the side. A second later, he recognized it for a feint.  
  
Algernon cast a nonverbal spell again. Luck was the only thing that let Harry pivot away from the stream of flying mirrors, which arced around like Muggle flying disks and came to strike him again. Harry rolled under them this time, and hissed the countercurse. The mirrors shattered into glass dust.  
  
“Yes, you can do magic properly when you want to,” said Algernon, and sighed a little. “Of course, the insomnia didn’t have any of the usual effects on you. It couldn’t, not if I wanted Malfoy to kill you.” He turned to look in a disappointed way at Malfoy. “Although he probably would have dropped his wand due to falling asleep at the wrong moment.”  
  
Harry struck when Algernon was standing with his shoulder turned to him, but Algernon spun back and shook his head as he caught the spell on a shield that, of course, looked like glass. “You need to be faster than that to catch  _me_  napping, Harry,” he said, and reflected the spell straight back at him.  
  
Harry shuddered as he ducked under his own Stunner. That would be embarrassing, to be taken out by his own spell, and he would probably never hear the end of it.   
  
That is, he wouldn’t if he lived past whatever Algernon was planning to do to him. And he suspected he wouldn’t, if the careful way that Algernon took aim at him was any indication.   
  
But he had noticed something he didn’t think Algernon had. He edged back towards his desk, raising a Shield Charm in front of him in case Algernon tried to do something permanent on the way.  
  
Algernon strolled along, clucking his tongue and shaking his head. “You have such a great faith in the simple things, Harry,” he said, and began to rotate his wand, making the air around it turn smooth and fog-like. “You should have forgotten that you’re not dealing with a simple opponent.”  
  
“What made you show up right now?” Harry asked. “Did you have an alarm spell set to let you know if the twin people in the Twin Knives spell got together?” He was sure it was that. Either an alarm spell on the both of them that would trigger only when they were in close proximity or one on Malfoy.  
  
“That’s not important,” said Algernon, with a sort of sigh. “Believe me, Harry, no one regrets this more than me. If I could have spared you, I would have. You would be a great asset to a properly-run Department. But as it is, they spare too many resources to holding you in check and supporting you when the public wants to talk to you or see on a certain case, and I’m forced to do this instead.” He aimed his wand. “If you held still, I promise I wouldn’t hurt you as much. The Twin Knives curse was already a blandishment to speed, but it’s not proven very efficient.”  
  
It was about then, with Algernon focused solely on Harry, that Malfoy, whose eyes Harry had seen flickering, lunged to his feet and held out his wand in Algernon’s direction, spitting, “ _Cavea!_ ”  
  
The spell was a Cage Curse, which Harry wouldn’t have tried, since it had a reputation for being slower to show up than most spells. But it was a good try, with the stone bars sprouting from the floor right around Algernon’s feet, where they needed to be.  
  
Unfortunately, Algernon had plunged forwards the moment he saw the bars rising, or maybe the moment Malfoy pronounced the curse; Harry wasn’t sure which. The cage slammed together, and Algernon was outside it, turning to launch the transparent spell he had prepared at Malfoy instead of Harry.  
  
Harry cast the quickest spell he could think of on the spur of the moment, the Wailing Lights, which combined a quick bunch of red and green and yellow lights flaring off the end of his wand accompanied by a piercing cry like a baby’s. It worked the way he wanted to, in that Algernon’s hand jerked, and his spell crashed into the floor instead, turning the stone to a sludgy glass.  
  
Harry backed up so that Malfoy was right behind him. He hoped Malfoy wouldn’t fall asleep again soon, but he had to be prepared for the possibility. He could conjure a stretcher to help carry Malfoy along if he had to.  
  
“Everything would be better if you only  _understood_ ,” said Algernon. He was grimacing. It wasn’t a good look on him. Then again, Harry didn’t think triumph would have been, either.  
  
“Surely Mr. Malfoy can understand,” said Algernon, and bizarrely turned towards Malfoy. “In a well-regulated Ministry—”  
  
From the subtle movement of his hand, it was another trap, and Harry didn’t intend to stay and listen to the end of it. He flicked his own wand up and to the side, in a spell he could perform nonverbally, and the invisible clothesline knifed into the back of Algernon’s knees and spilled him to the floor.  
  
Harry ran at once out the door, tugging Malfoy with him by the arm. He wanted to send a Patronus to someone to let them know what was going on, but Algernon was too dangerous to linger near, and this late, they were unlikely to run into a lot of people in the Ministry. They would have to run until he found a quiet place they could defend for a bit.  
  
Sure enough, a Knife Curse went by underneath his boots, and Harry hissed and cursed and hopped. Algernon was dangerous even lying on the floor and firing beneath the desk. Well, of course he was. He was a fully-trained Auror.  
  
And even though Harry also was, he had to protect someone who wasn’t. He was sure that was going to take a toll on him.   
  
“Potter?”  
  
It was Malfoy, panting loudly against his ear. Harry shrugged a shoulder back to indicate he was listening, but kept running, and kept pulling Malfoy with him. Malfoy might or might not have the sense to keep running if Harry let him go; Harry was certain he didn’t have the skill to keep surviving Algernon’s curses.  
  
“We could go up to my Department. There are a few people left there—”  
  
The corridor ahead of them shuddered. Harry cursed with shock. He knew this spell, but he was stunned that Algernon would try it here, with the weight of so much stone on top of them.   
  
Maybe those floors would also be gone in a “properly-organized” Ministry.  
  
“Be quiet for right now, Malfoy,” Harry muttered to him, and hooked an arm around Malfoy’s waist, and rolled them both into the left-hand wall of the corridor at the same moment that the floor rose up beneath them.   
  
Malfoy shouted and yelped. Harry didn’t listen to it because he didn’t have to. Instead, he sent them rolling into the right-hand wall, as the left-hand one snapped down into the floor behind them like the maw of a great beast.  
  
By then, Malfoy seemed to understand the nature of the Earthquake Stomp curse. He cooperated when Harry reeled away from the right-hand wall, and he didn’t jump when it came down behind them with a clomp. He grabbed Harry’s arm and nodded to a hump of risen floor in front of them.   
  
Harry nodded back. They would have to risk it, even though the curse would likely bring the ceiling down on top of them next in an attempt to crush them. The walls were buckled too close all about them.  
  
That didn’t mean he couldn’t ease the journey, though. Harry whispered a spell that made his hand begin to shimmer, and gestured Malfoy forwards with his head. Once Harry’s own spell fully took effect, then Harry would have a hard time grabbing onto Malfoy’s elbow.  
  
Malfoy ran, or floated, over to the top of the risen floor, and began to climb. Harry looked over his shoulder, but the geography of the corridor had changed so much that he couldn’t see Algernon at all.  
  
The ceiling came slamming down at Malfoy once he was on the top of the mound, and he cried out and covered his face with his hands. Then he seemed to realize he hadn’t been hurt. He drew his hands back and stared right through them, at the floor.  
  
Drifting up beside him, Harry took a moment to smile at the astonished expression on his face. “Yeah, I turned us into ghosts for a little bit,” he agreed. “But it won’t last long.” He eyed the corridor in front of them, which led towards the lifts. It was normal. Algernon had either come to his senses—unlikely—or he had realized that using the Earthquake Stomp in a more populated area of the Ministry wasn’t a good idea. “Come on.”  
  
Even as he and Malfoy slid down the other side of the mound, they reformed. Malfoy stumbled and muttered something under his breath as he caught a foot on a zigzagging crack in the stone.  
  
“It’s all right,” Harry reassured him. “You can swear, I don’t mind.”  
  
Malfoy gave him a scathing look. “Have you considered where we’re going to go to lose this madman?”  
  
Harry nodded. The respite from dodging side to side, as brief as it had been, had let him think. Going into an area with more people was as much a gamble as staying away from them; Algernon could plausibly eliminate the witnesses and blame it on Harry and Malfoy once he had killed them. “There’s a small corridor just outside the Department of Mysteries that they sometimes use when they’re making deliveries of things that don’t need to be sealed in solid silver or cold water or something. Do you know it?”  
  
Malfoy paled and looked around. “How far is it from here?”  
  
“Pretty far,” Harry said gently. He hated the frightened look on Malfoy’s face. Malfoy had done his time in the war, and he shouldn’t have to feel this now. “I won’t lie to you. But we can make it if we move. And we can seal it off.” That was for when the deliveries didn’t turn out to be as harmless as generally suspected.  
  
Malfoy shuddered once, and then nodded. “Let’s go.”  
  
Harry did pause for one moment as they headed towards the stairs that almost no one used, having relied on the lifts for so long. Couldn’t he send a Patronus from right here? Algernon didn’t seem as if he was chasing them anymore. Maybe he’d given up—  
  
Instinct more than anything else sent Harry suddenly sprinting ahead, and made him grab Malfoy and dive to the floor. A curse went past his head that would have taken his spirit into the nearest mirror and trapped it.  
  
“You would have been easier to deal with if you would simply  _give up_ ,” said Algernon.  
  
Harry didn’t hesitate to cast the spell he had in mind. It dived in front of him, burrowing straight into the stone. Unlike the Earthquake Stomp spell that Algernon had cast, it wouldn’t bring down the building. In fact, the tunnel was already reaching back for him. Normally, it would only take the caster down into whatever depth the tunnel bored into.  
  
 _Normally_. But Harry hugged Malfoy close to him, and the magic yanked him into the tunnel as well. Behind him, Algernon spat something, but even he couldn’t change the nature of the spell and get into the tunnel before it closed smoothly behind them.  
  
They plunged down through the stone, dizzying and moving so fast that Harry knew they would die if they crashed into something. But they wouldn’t. The magic would prevent it.   
  
From the way he was struggling and snarling in Harry’s arms, Malfoy didn’t believe it.  
  
“We’re going straight down!” Harry hissed into his ear.  
  
“That’s what I’m worried about!”  
  
“It’ll stop when it gets to a place that’s big enough!”  
  
Malfoy paused as if he was willing to listen to that despite his general lack of trust in Harry, and then the spell spat them out into the Atrium. Harry blinked. For some reason, he had forgotten they would hit that first. He had thought it would be the Department of Mysteries for certain.  
  
But since they were so close to the Floos, they could get out. Harry ran straight towards the nearest fireplace, and Malfoy braced his feet as if he would stop Harry’s rush, but Harry shook that hold off and grabbed his elbow instead.  
  
“I’m tired of you hauling me around like your doll!” Malfoy tried angrily to shake off the arm across his shoulders.  
  
“If you didn’t have a tendency to fall asleep every other minute, I wouldn’t have to,” Harry snapped, and threw so much Floo powder into the fire that drifts of it scattered all around the hearth and there was a sharp pop and snap from the center of the flames. “Come on.” He herded Malfoy up in front of him, where he would be less vulnerable to curses if Algernon came out of one of the lifts or doors, and called, “Potter’s Hideaway!”  
  
The last thing Harry heard before he whirled away from the Ministry was the angry cry of a hunting Algernon behind him.  
  
*  
  
The first thing Potter did when they arrived in his ridiculously-named flat was to draw his wand and conjure a glowing silver stag. Draco flinched back, remembering all too well what it was like to have that stag charging down his throat. And it looked at him like it remembered that time, too, and would treat it as good sport.  
  
But Potter was already speaking, a hectic flush on his cheeks. “Ron, Algernon Sithicus cast a spell on me and Malfoy that binds us together. Twin Knives. We’re at my house. Do something!” The stag whirled a minute later and charged through the wall, its antlers glowing softly. Draco only fully relaxed when it was gone.  
  
“You couldn’t do that before?” Draco muttered. He was rubbing his arms before he thought about it. Potter’s flat was dismally cold.   
  
In fact, it was dismal altogether, Draco saw as he looked around. There was no fire on the hearth, and there was only a single lamp on a table that might be lit. It looked as if this was the room where Potter practiced his tragic brooding.  
  
“I couldn’t take the chance that Algernon would cast a curse at us while I was concentrating on the message,” said Potter shortly, and brushed past Draco to cast  _Incendio_ at the hearth. At least there was nothing wrong with his casting of that particular spell. Draco relaxed into warmth with a long sigh. “Anyway, I think that he was probably aiming to kill us. He took his sweet time with it with the Twin Knives. But now…” He let his voice trail off.  
  
Draco turned to face him. “Why did he do it? I was unconscious when he confessed.” If he had. Maybe Potter just knew his fellow Auror so well that he had known why.  
  
Potter turned around and put his back against the brick of the hearth, and at Draco’s look back and forth from the lamp to him, lit it with another flick of his wand. “He said that the Auror Department spent too much time and money on supporting my cases. He wants to reorganize things so that doesn’t happen.” Potter brushed a hand through his hair and laughed shortly. “I reckon you were right when you said the spellcaster was just focused on me.”  
  
 _Of course I was,_ Draco thought, and said aloud, “Since the war, I haven’t really been worth anyone’s vengeance.”  
  
Potter cast him a startled look, blinking. “That’s a hell of a thing to say about yourself.”  
  
“But true,” said Draco, and wandered over to sit down on the couch. “Anyway. There’s only one way to undo the Twin Knives curse that I know of, assuming that we don’t want to go to the Healers at St. Mungo’s.”  
  
“I don’t think we can until the morning,” said Potter. “But that ought to be safe…” Then he hesitated.  
  
Draco nodded. “You’re thinking of the press?” He certainly was. No matter what they said, there would be someone who got hold of the Twin Knives aspect that made Draco have dream-visions of killing Potter, and they would manage to twist that into him being an actual attempted murderer. And Potter probably just didn’t want the publicity in general, even if it wasn’t negative for him.  
  
“All right,” said Potter, and firmed his shoulders. “So what do we need to do to end this curse?”  
  
“Overcome the twin knives of the curse,” said Draco. “If one of us was cursed with lust and the other with frigidity, we would have to have sex in a way that made sure the one with lust didn’t reach orgasm, and the one with frigidity did.” Didn’t  _that_ make Potter blush in an interesting way. He seemed altogether more alive and interesting than he had when Draco confronted him in his office at first, which lent Draco hope that this would work. “With this particular curse, with you having no dreams and me having violent ones of you, I’m sure that you have to meet me in my dreams and convince me you won’t hurt me.”  
  
“Yes, that might be an interesting solution,” Potter agreed. “ _If I could bloody get to sleep._ ”  
  
Draco started to answer, but Potter went on furiously. “And how do you know this, anyway? I mean, if this curse is so unique each time it manifests, how do you  _know_ that this is the right thing to do, and why should I trust you?”  
  
Draco rolled his eyes. “You just spent so much time trying to make sure I lived, and now you ask that question?”  
  
Potter ran a hand through his hair again and closed his eyes tightly. “That’s different. I don’t want you to die. But that’s different from sharing a dream with you, and—and I’m tired. For the first time in months.”  
  
He flopped down on the couch beside Draco, then winced. Draco thought he had probably sat on one of the springs of the stupid thing. For the moment, he waited until Potter looked at him, and then said slowly and deliberately, “I know a spell that can be used to send you to sleep. It’s one of the spells that the Healers at St. Mungo’s would use to cure us.”  
  
“Then why don’t we just do what they would do?” Potter sat up.  
  
“Because neither of us know advanced Healing magic?” Draco asked dryly, and for once Potter thought before he spoke, and then nodded hesitantly. “So. Wait until I fall asleep again. Cast the spell on yourself right away.”  
  
Potter sighed as though he was going to expel all the air in his lungs on an ill-advised attempt to blow Draco’s confidence to pieces, but he said, “What’s the incantation?”  
  
Draco showed him, and then leaned back against the couch and waited for the next moment that would deaden his eyelids, keeping his gaze on Potter for lack of anything else to stare at. Potter looked back at him for a long moment, then snapped his head abruptly to the side and looked away.  
  
Draco snorted breathlessly, and would have said something, but sleep took him again. At least this time, he heard a much more comforting sound than he had the last time he capitulated: Potter’s voice, steadily chanting the spell that should bring him to Draco’s dreams.  
  
 _If we’re lucky._  
  
But even that, Draco scarcely had time to worry about before sleep swallowed him.


	3. Chapter Three

Harry found himself in a place that looked like Hogwarts’s dungeons, if the dungeons were strung with cobwebs and death-traps that resembled nets studded with razors. Harry fell a cautious step back and reached for his wand.   
  
His hand closed on smoke. Harry swallowed back panic and cast a Summoning Charm as hard as he could with willpower. This was a dream. If he could lose his wand in it, if he could be in a place that looked like Hogwarts but was changed, then he ought to be able to call the wand if he concentrated hard enough.  
  
That didn’t happen. Instead, the corridor around him began to ripple with strong, cold wind. Harry turned in a cautious circle, wanting to press his back against a wall so he could get a solid look at the coming threat without it sneaking up on him, but unable to find a place that wasn’t already crowded with strung traps and nets.  
  
The wind kept blowing. Harry wondered for a minute, and then walked in the direction it was coming from. If he was here to seek out and defeat Malfoy’s monsters, presumably he had to confront the source of the danger.  
  
The corridors spun around him in crazed, disjointed angles. Harry was sure he had already walked past the same trap three times now, but he tried his best to keep his eyes focused straight ahead and attribute the craziness to it being a dream. Yes, he would probably hate to be in this situation in the real world; he would step back and call for Ron instead of continuing.  
  
But Malfoy had been facing dreams like this for months, and Harry was the only hope he had.  
  
Harry relaxed his back as he thought about that. This was the best thing he could do, at the moment. The Aurors had trained him to be a rescuer, someone who helped people, and Malfoy was the one who needed help, far more than Harry did. At least Harry’s insomnia hadn’t made him lose his kids—not that he’d had any—or actually inflicted health problems on him other than some grumpiness.   
  
 _It might have cost you your marriage._  
  
Harry brushed the clinging cobwebs of his thoughts away from him impatiently, disregarding them as more bothersome than the traps. He had to focus his thoughts on Malfoy and saving him right now. Other things could wait.  
  
*  
  
Draco didn’t know how long he had been running, but it was long enough to make his lungs burn and his legs ache. He stumbled, and Potter cast another Arrow Curse over his shoulder, close enough to sting his earlobe and make his heart and chest vibrate with pain. Potter’s cruel laughter came from behind him. Draco shuddered. He knew what he would see if he looked back: Potter with burning eyes as red as the Dark Lord’s, and a silver bow in his hands.   
  
The bow was just to show off. He didn’t need it to cast the Arrow Curse. But it made Draco think all the more about being shot through the heart with an actual steel point, and of course Potter would take advantage of that, the sadistic bastard.  
  
Draco made it around a corner that seemed big enough he thought it might contain an outside door, and then fell sprawling on a sudden patch of ice. He struggled back to his feet, head buzzing and spine aching, and looked up. There was no door. No exit. No escape.  
  
Potter had somehow got in front of him, and Draco felt he might cry with the unfairness of it all.  
  
Or, no, he’d duplicated himself. Draco could hear the taunting hunting cries of Potter still echoing from behind him, while the one in front of him just stood and stared at him with big eyes. Draco dropped his face down until it rested against his arms and braced himself, resigned himself, for death.  
  
“I never thought it would be this bad,” breathed the Potter in front of him.  
  
Draco had no idea what that meant, and frankly, he was tired of trying to think. He stretched out a hand that Potter could ignore or not, and spoke the words he wanted to speak. “Will you kill me already? I’ve had enough.”  
  
Potter crouched down in front of him and looked at Draco carefully. When he spoke, his voice was urgent for some reason, humming like a harp. “Don’t you remember? The Twin Knives curse? An Auror named Algernon Sithicus put you under it because he thought I got too much attention from the public for my cases, and he could use you to dispose of me when you snapped from the dreams and tried to kill me.”  
  
Draco blinked, and blinked again. The words sounded familiar, even the name sounded familiar, even though he’d never heard it in his life, but he knew Potter must be wrong about something. “You’re here to kill me,” he finally pointed out. “Not be killed.”  
  
“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Potter, and stood up and stepped over Draco’s body. Draco turned over slowly, but even that didn’t dislodge Potter. He just stood in between Draco and the version of himself coming down the corridor, his eyes hard.  
  
“You don’t even have a wand,” Draco noted dreamily. “Why is it that my mind can’t come up with a savior who even has a wand? But it can come up with an enemy who does.” He looked down the corridor again, and saw that that version of Potter had at least hesitated. “That probably says something deep and profound about me.” He sighed and dropped his head back, barely feeling interested in what was going to happen next.  
  
“You’re right,” said Potter suddenly, which was the first time Draco could remember  _that_ voice saying  _those_ words, and made his eyes pop open. But Potter wasn’t watching him; he was nodding. “I don’t have a wand, and I need to fight him a different way. The dreams are visions of hatred.”  
  
He turned around and crouched down in front of Draco. His face was uncertain, but there was something hard and shining behind it, something Draco didn’t understand. “The dreams are visions of hatred,” he repeated, as if Draco might not have been listening the first time. “So I need—what’s the opposite of hatred?”  
  
“Love?” Draco offered after a long moment of silence. He had to wonder if this was a trick question.  
  
“That’s right.” Potter’s voice was low and soothing. He reached out and took Draco slowly in his arms. Draco let himself be drawn, because why not? “Now it just remains how I’m going to show it. I mean, when I’m awake I don’t love you. I don’t know if I even love my ex-wife. It’s like I forgot how to do it.”  
  
“That would be a side-effect of the curse,” Draco said knowingly, and then blinked. He hadn’t even realized he knew that. He put one hand over his mouth and blinked at Potter, who laughed a little and nodded.  
  
“See? You do know some things. It probably isn’t at the forefront of your mind when you’re dreaming like this, but it’s there.” Potter’s smile was warm.  
  
And it occurred to Draco now that the Potter chasing him hadn’t attacked them yet, and that was a little odd. He sat up slowly, blinking for a moment before he managed to get his eyes fastened on the one who had been chasing him.  
  
That Potter was standing in the middle of the corridor, glaring at Draco with eyes as hard as jade. He put his hands on his hips and shook his head. “Do you  _have_ to hold him like that?” he said harshly. “It’s disgusting.”  
  
Draco flinched a little, even though it wasn’t perfectly clear who that Potter was talking to, him or the new Potter. The Potter holding him said simply, “Wow, you’re an unpleasant bastard,” and then turned and faced Draco. He had a complex expression working at the edges of his lips and eyes.  
  
“I’m going to do this the best I can,” he told Draco plainly. “I’m going to try. Okay? And I want you to tell me if I hurt you or anything like that.”  
  
“I have no idea what you mean,” Draco said with dignity. He knew that Potter’s presence was somehow keeping his dream-enemy at bay. And he did remember about this being a dream now, and Sithicus, and his own hope that they could end this curse if Potter came into his dreams. But he had thought it would result in some sort of duel between the two Potters. If Potter was apologizing for being about to hurt him, maybe he planned to join his twin and cut Draco apart instead.  
  
“You don’t know what he’s done,” the Potter who held the bow said in a soft growl that seemed to resonate inside Draco’s bones. “You wouldn’t be comforting him this way if you knew.”  
  
The Potter kneeling in front of Draco didn’t turn a hair. He only watched Draco and nodded when Draco stared at him again. “Ready?”  
  
“Ready,” Draco echoed, though he had no idea what was about to happen. But what else could he say besides that?  
  
The Potter in front of him leaned forwards. His hands came up, fluttering delicately in front of Draco’s face for a moment before they settled on his cheeks and jaw. Draco tensed and arched his back, ready for Potter to squeeze his face in. Crush his skull. Draco thought that perhaps the opposite of hatred meant something different to Potter than it did to Draco.  
  
But instead, Potter leaned near enough to him to see, it seemed, through Draco’s eyes into the back of his head, and he whispered, “You didn’t betray me when the Snatchers brought me to Malfoy Manor,” and kissed Draco on the mouth.  
  
Draco fell back with a gasp. Potter tumbled clumsily with him. The apparition behind them roared wordlessly. Potter was gasping himself, with something that sounded like shock, and that appalled Draco, a little. Potter was the one who had  _chosen_ to do this crazy thing. How could it have surprised him the way it did Draco?  
  
“You were young and stupid and got the Mark,” Potter said, his head bowed and his voice rushing between his parted lips as if he was trying to hurry up and whisper a secret to Draco in class before a professor came back and caught them at it. “But you started to regret it. A lot of the Death Eaters didn’t. They only regretted that they got caught.”  
  
Before Draco could say that regret had come too late and cost him a lot, Potter kneeled up and kissed him again.  
  
This time, he did it furiously, as if he had recovered the blazing passion that the Twin Knives curse had locked away from him. His hands were so fiercely knotted in Draco’s hair that Draco wondered for a second if he would have to cut his hair to get them loose—a thought he revolted away from. He opened his mouth to protest.  
  
And found it filled with Potter’s tongue.  
  
Draco choked, and this time, at least Potter didn’t act all surprised and shocked and join him in the gasps that he had no right to feel. He moved nearer, on his knees, and murmured something Draco couldn’t hear because their mouths were still too close together. Then he kissed Draco again, and Draco felt a swirl and swell of warmth grow in his chest. Sure, he hadn’t kissed another man since before he got married to Astoria, but Potter was attractive—or could be, when he wasn’t trying to kill him—and he knew that Potter, when he was awake, still didn’t like Draco much.  
  
That made it mean more, rather than less, that he would try something like this to save Draco.  
  
 _Even if he’s calling on the life-debts and acting like he really has to work to do it,_ Draco thought dizzily, and arched his head back, watching as stars reeled on the ceiling. He blinked. There hadn’t been stars on the ceiling a moment before, but now there were, as if they had moved magically from the corridor where Potter had been chasing him to the middle of Hogwarts’s Great Hall.  
  
Draco felt his face flush from the notion, but in a way, it was an attractive one. He stretched his legs out and drew Potter down on top of him, distantly hearing the one who had been chasing him roar again in anger.  
  
But not attack. Potter had been right. The visions of hatred caused by the Twin Knives curse could be driven away by love.  
  
 _A strange love, a manufactured love,_ Draco thought, but honestly, he was all right with most things that would save him. He kissed Potter on the cheek and on the nose, and Potter answered with soft laughter, chuckles that soothed Draco as much as aroused him, and drew back so he could look at him.  
  
“You were an innocent kid, once,” Potter whispered. “You were unpleasant, but you didn’t know that. You thought it would be brilliant to have Harry Potter as a friend. That was it. That was all.”  
  
Draco blinked. “You find it harder to forgive me for that than for some of the things he did during the war?” He  _thought_  that was what this had been about, anyway, Potter reciting a list of Draco’s sins so he could forgive them.  
  
“Part of me did,” said Potter, and he picked up Draco’s wrist and kissed the underside of it. “I think it’s working.”  
  
Draco had to nod. The walls of the trapped and warped version of Hogwarts had faded away, and he and Potter were floating in the midst of stars instead, a shining void of them, with their colors varying from silver to blue to red to gold.  
  
“Do you want me,” said Potter, in such a low voice that Draco felt the vibration of the words in his chest, “to stop kissing you?” He turned around and rested his warm cheek against the same place on Draco’s wrist he had brushed with his lips. “I mean, this is kind of—you have to admit you didn’t think—you didn’t ask—I didn’t know—”  
  
Draco hesitated, but although he didn’t feel the grey walls of the dream fading back in around them, he knew his own reluctance to stop was there, and the source wasn’t an issue right now. “I think you should keep thinking about loving me,” he said. “Just in case, you know, the curse isn’t broken and the dreams come back. I mean, we’re not awake yet, either.”  
  
Potter’s smile was a warm and wonderful thing, and he leaned back down and gave Draco another lazy kiss. Draco smiled into the kiss and let his hands wander. Maybe it was a long time since he had done this, but he still thought he had probably had experiences that Potter, good little Gryffindor and shy faithful husband that he’d been, wouldn’t.  
  
Potter gasped when Draco touched his cock, arching his neck back and then bowing it as if he was trying to look between his own legs and see what Draco had found. Draco pressed his lips together so he wouldn’t laugh, which would honestly be disastrous, and hooked his own leg up and around the back of Potter’s, holding him down, holding him there.  
  
“All right?” Draco whispered, letting his own voice drift and curl around Potter like smoke. He knew how to be seductive in his dreams, if not awake, even if it had mostly been his own parents and Astoria’s who had arranged their marriage. This wasn’t marriage. This wasn’t awake.  
  
“Yeah,” said Potter, and bore down on Draco’s hand so suddenly that Draco was the one who squeaked and scrubbed his fingers back and forth, trapped and startled. Potter grinned at him, lazy, unlike his motion, and then reached down and rooted around until he got his hand firmly on Draco. “All right?”  
  
“Yeah,” Draco whispered back, and then they were rocking together, in parallel, their hands and their bodies doing equal amounts of work.  
  
Or so it seemed to Draco. In reality, it was a little hard to tell.   
  
They could maybe have woken up then and gone back to normal, Draco thought hazily. Maybe Potter was only doing this to break the curse. Maybe this was nothing more than an impulse of the moment.   
  
But it was a dream, and he would go along with it, because that was what he wanted to.  
  
And there was also the immense, the  _titanic,_ pleasure of seeing Potter arch his head back and hiss, his cheeks flushing and all traces of the apathetic expression Draco had first noticed in his office washed away. There was the shock of seeing Potter bite his lip the way Draco also did when he began to shudder. There was the unexpectedly intimate way that Potter fell down, face-forwards, on his shoulder when he came, and the way he whimpered a second later, sweetly.  
  
Then he curved his hand and rubbed with his thumb, and Draco was also gone, as suddenly, as sweetly, spiraling and leaping into nothing, his heart racing with utter glory.  
  
*  
  
Harry woke so suddenly that it made him gasp. And then he reached out, and touched his temple with one hand and the slowly-stirring Malfoy’s arm with the other.  
  
He’d slept. He’d had a dream. And he could feel—he could feel again.  
  
All the colors that seemed to have drained out of the world about the time of his divorce were back. He breathed in deep, aching regret for the fact that he hadn’t realized before now there were other things in the world than his Auror job. He mourned for the loss of his marriage and the near-loss of his friendship with Ron. He thought of waking up in the morning and going in to work, and there was nothing more than a minor swell of pleasant anticipation, not the all-consuming obsession it had once been.  
  
This was—this was something he could actually picture himself doing. A way that he could actually picture himself living.   
  
And when he rolled over and met Malfoy’s thoughtful, carefully-sheltered grey eyes, there was something else he wanted to say.  
  
“I know it was a dream,” Harry said, carefully. “And I did what I had to do.”  
  
Malfoy blinked once. Harry thought that ordinarily he would have already retreated in defensiveness, but his sleep was just leaving him, and the dream of the pleasure they’d shared.  
  
“But I think—I think that I’m going to live differently from now on,” Harry said. “New goals. Different thoughts.” He hesitated once. “Different desires. Not going back to what was already done.” He reached out and hesitated again before he cupped Malfoy’s fingers. “Could you come with me? Maybe?”  
  
Before Malfoy could answer, a glowing dog bounded through the wall. Ron’s Patronus, Harry realized with a smile. They had probably caught Algernon.  
  
And that was what the Patronus said, tilting its head to the side. “Sithicus is under control, mate. He’ll be up in front of the Wizengamot for certain, casting that curse. And I’ll be glad to have you back to normal.” The Patronus hesitated, too, and then added, “Talk to me,” before dissipating into wisps of mist like steam.  
  
Harry smiled and looked back down at Malfoy, who was looking at him. “What do you say?” Harry asked him.  
  
“You don’t want to go back to your wife?” Malfoy’s voice was a little hoarse.  
  
“No,” said Harry. “It—the curse made things bad, but I think—it wouldn’t have led to divorce so quickly if things weren’t already wrong between us. What makes me wince—” He paused again, wondering if he should bare a secret this deep, and then reminded himself that he knew what Malfoy looked like when he came. “Is not doing more to stop it. But I think I want to be friends with her, and something else.” He looked down and met Malfoy’s gaze again, reminding himself that “No” wasn’t the worst word to hear in the world, and at least they were free of the curse now, and Malfoy was safe. “With you.”  
  
Malfoy blinked again, and then got a small, careful smile on his face. “Well, I do intend to challenge Astoria again for custody of Scorpius, and an Auror’s knowledge of laws could come in very useful. Or you might at least have the pull to find me a good lawyer.”  
  
Harry smiled and squeezed Malfoy’s hand, hard. Those words stood for all sorts of other things that Malfoy couldn’t say right now, he knew.  
  
Well. Those words would come in time.  
  
And for now, with the way that Malfoy reached out to lay a hand along Harry’s lips, for a fleeting second, Harry could think of plenty of things they would do with the time in between.  
  
 **The End.**


End file.
